Over the years, the music for the Crucifixion has changed. What you hear on the concept album, in the 1973 film, and in various recordings of the show, worked perfectly in a show that is, in some ways, incredibly avant-garde. For those who don't know this, the album used background sounds as Christ's bodily functions during his crucifixion. For example, they used the drum for his heartbeat, and things of this nature. Mixed into the background, far below his body going haywire, was the sounds of people crying, moving, etc., strange, atonal vocal clusters, a kind of 1970s experimental rock, not unlike the material Brian Wilson was working on with his 1969 experimental album Smile, which was only recently finally released. When he died, all the sounds stopped suddenly.

In the late Nineties, when ALW tried to use his replica stamp to put out a JCS he approved of, the Crucifixion scene was re-orchestrated (the best example of this is in the 2000 video, or if you can find any bootlegs, the 2002-05 North American tour which featured, at one point, Sebastian Bach and Carl Anderson used the same approach). It was done in total background silence. You don't hear anyone crying, or moving, just this guy forcing out words, struggling to breathe while dying. Some key musical cues from the original arrangement are still there, but without the extra ephemera, they stand out much more. I don't really care for this version personally; I don't think it's horrible or anything, but it's just weird.

Now, has anyone heard or used alternate music for this scene? Again, if you search out bootlegs, there came a point in the famous A.D. Tour (which reunited Ted Neeley and Carl, and ran for five years, producing gross incomes approaching $100 million) when someone apparently took it upon themselves to write new music for the Crucifixion scene. The best quality recording is the 1997 closing night performance. You'll hear music for the Crucifixion scene that has never appeared in JCS before or since. It bears markers of the same type of feel that the concept album and original productions were going for, yes, but it's essentially an original (actual) melody. It is unknown who's responsible for it, but given his disdain for the production, it's highly unlikely that ALW was responsible.

The answer is... use what's in your licensed score. And if it's not really there, then you'd better have a terrific actor.

_________________Originally joined April 18, 20021,452 posts on original forum ("Broadway Legend" rank)